Updated at 9:42 p.m.
Measures seeking to enact local “just cause” eviction protections won approval in two of three Vermont municipalities in which they were on the ballot this Town Meeting Day, according to preliminary results reported Tuesday evening by town and city clerks.
In Winooski, where over 65% of households rent their homes, the “yes” campaign won by a nearly 3-1 margin. The vote was 566 for “just cause” and 208 against.
In Essex, the vote was 570 for and 383 against.
But in Brattleboro, the “no” vote was resounding: 1,221 voted against the tenant protections, while only 656 voted for them.
Vermont has the lowest rental vacancy rate in the nation. Tenants and activists with Rights & Democracy, the advocacy group spearheading the effort, have argued that “just cause” rights are necessary, baseline protections against profit-driven or retaliatory evictions in a white-hot housing market in which renters have little to no leverage. But particularly in Brattleboro, landlord and real estate groups came out in full force against the proposals, arguing that troublesome tenants are already too difficult to evict.
Standing outside the polls in Winooski on Tuesday, Nicholas Moore said his “yes” vote was simple.
“I think it helps people keep their homes unless there’s good reason for them not to — which I think is rare,” the 31-year-old University of Vermont Medical Center resident said.
And with home and rental prices continuing to climb, even some landlords who came to the polls in the Onion City said the state of the market made them sympathetic to the “just cause” effort’s arguments.
“Vermont is changing so quickly and a lot people are coming in with a lot of money from different states,” said Megan Hoffmann, 38, a local landlord who also works in restaurants and as a tutor. “I know how hard it is to evict tenants that you don’t want. But I think it has enough protections built into it.”
But others argued that it is landlords that have too little power.
“I just think landlords are at a disadvantage already, with all the rules and regulations,” said Essex voter Sven Eklof, a 45-year-old investment adviser.
“I think landlords should have some say,” he said. “It’s their property.”
His views were echoed in part by Stuart Race, 75, a landlord in Winooski who said he was in the process of kicking out a tenant so that he could clean up the unit.
“You’ve gotta have some of the rights you need to do some of the things you have to do,” he said. “You can’t take all the rights away from landlords.”
But asked what it was that concerned him, specifically, about Winooski’s proposed regulations, Race replied that he hadn’t “read it all, to tell you the truth.”
“My idea is if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch,” he said.
A landlord can generally decline to renew a tenant’s lease for any reason in the Green Mountain State. “Just cause” protections prohibit such evictions for “no cause,” and require property owners to give current tenants the right of first refusal when a lease is up. Such tenant protections still allow landlords to renegotiate the terms of a lease with a tenant — but usually include some restrictions.
Article 4 on the Winooski ballot, for example, would limit “unreasonable” rent increases “to prevent de facto evictions,” and in Brattleboro, Article 2 would have capped annual rent increases at 12%. Both measures would also make explicit that tenants could only be evicted for non-payment of rent, or if they broke tenant-landlord law or the terms of their lease.
In Essex, Article 9 would simply give the Selectboard “the power to enact an ordinance to protect residential tenants from eviction without just cause.”
Winooski’s ballot measure exempted owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes, as well as units that landlords plan to take off the market to house themselves or their families, and units that need major renovations. Brattleboro’s item included similar exemptions as well as carve-outs for in-unit rentals and accessory dwelling units on a landlord’s property.
Charter changes that won approval from local residents Tuesday still have a long way to go. In Vermont, municipal charter changes must also get the greenlight from Montpelier before being enacted.
In Burlington, residents backed a “just cause” charter change by a 2-1 margin in 2021, and lawmakers subsequently approved the measure in 2022. But Gov. Phil Scott then vetoed the tenant protections, and the Vermont House came within one vote of overriding.
The Republican governor has remained steadfast in his opposition to such tenant protections, and any new “just cause” charter changes are likely to once again meet his veto pen. But the odds that lawmakers will be able to override him are better this year after Democrats won a historic number of seats in the November elections. The Burlington charter change has already been re-introduced by lawmakers this legislative session.
Winooski’s charter change will also require an extra step, according to city officials. Because of a procedural mistake, the city will need to hold a second “validation” vote to accept the results of Tuesday’s election. A date has not yet been set to do so.